Blogging the beginning of Chicago's Christian Science fellowship

Does Christian Science belong in interfaith dialogue?

Religious leaders from around the world are warning us that young people today, more than ever before, need to understand their own religions in the context of the world around them. Very few Christian Science kids go to school with other Christian Scientists now. They’re often at a loss as to how to explain their religious lives to their schoolmates, and so they must either opt out of religious conversation altogether, or else they need to know better how to explain who they are.

“Religious pluralism” is an even more accurate description of our need than “interfaith dialogue,” because it brings out the sense that we must understand and engage with one another. Dialogue tends to imply that we merely need to tolerate one another’s existence. Pluralism helps us appreciate not only the importance of others’ lives and beliefs, but it encourages us to understand why our own stories are relevant to those around us.

I am attending the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Melbourne, Australia, this week, December 3 – 9. I have the privilege of being invited to participate in one of the programs, but I also am enjoying the privilege of listening to and learning from others. I plan to blog and tweet about the significant events of each day, so I hope you’ll enjoy the snippets of this world-wide discussion.

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2 Responses

I see that with the above article– essentially on ‘Religious Pluralism’– Shirley has once again challenged us to think beyond our comfort zones and to find the common ground that can help to create the brotherhood of man on earth, which is certainly one of the many God-ordained objectives of all major religions.

There can surely be no disagreement that Ch.Sts. should be engaged in ‘inter-faith dialogue.’ Mrs. Eddy had certain students of hers participate in the world’s first Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, and she continued that dialogue– largely via her publications– ever thereafter. I myself have been blessed to have been able to take advantage of Chicago’s rich, multi-religious presence over the decades by often visiting, reading about, and even participating in weekly dialogue groups with representatives of many religions. Such activities are wonderful ways and means of learning about other religions, identifying their commonalities, and even, as the opportunity presents itself, of sharing the unique contribution and values of Christian Science with others. That said, I for one, would not vote to replace the term ‘interfaith dialogue’ by the term ‘religious pluralism,’ as Shirley informs us that some have done.

In my view ‘dialogue’ does not imply mere ‘toleration’ nor does ‘pluralism’ preeminently signify appreciation of others’ beliefs. In much of Western Europe today, for example, there is a raging debate about the new religious pluralism existent there, as a result, in part, of decades of immigration from its former Third World colonies and elsewhere, and as a result of increasing globalization. Many Christian and non-Christian Europeans, for example– residents of the European part of what used to be called ‘Christendom’– love or are perfectly willing to tolerate the sound of church bells and church chimes ringing out well-known hymns, but they are deeply disturbed– some them are now enraged– by the prospect of having to listen, instead, to a Muslim muezzin, calling ‘the faithful’ to prayer from his minaret, which all mosques are supposed to have. Over half the white population of France, it is now being reported, is opposed to amplified muezzin calls and support a ban on the construction of minarets, which are explicitly designed for that purpose, even as they have already outlawed some aspects of Muslim women’s traditional attire in certain venues. Whether those are ‘Christian’ positions to take or not is not the reason for my mentioning them, because one can argue both sides of the question. Traditionalists rely on the fact that although God made all men “of one blood,” He/She simultaneously “…determined… the [assumedly natural] bounds of their habitation…” (see Acts 17:26), whereas modernists rely on the numerous Biblical calls for unity and brotherhood of all God’s children in the “latter days.”

I take no position here on the sociological issue that is necessarily implied by the term ‘religious pluralism,’ especially since this is not a forum on sociology but on religion, but I do believe that all Christians, including Ch.Sts., necessarily take the position that, regardless of the rightness or wrongness of sociological– hence also of religious– pluralism within the borders of any given country, once a Christian, including a Ch.St., finds him- or herself in the midst of a pluralistic society, he or she is duty bound to express and to be nothing but love with respect to all men and women. And this, in my view, requires much ‘inter-faith dialogue’ of all and increasingly different kinds. Surely, therefore, CSF-MC must be very ‘inter-faith dialogical,’ even if it isn’t ‘religiously pluralistic’– especially with regard to its preference for and desire to share the “evangelical” (some would argue, even ‘the evangelistic’) doctrines of the Holy Bible and of Mary Baker Eddy.

Hey Davy,
Could it be that the French and the Swiss are sanctioning Islamic practices because those practices allow no tolerance for Christian practice? That’s Islam. Just try to gather together for Christian worship in a private home, in some Islamic lands, and you risk arrest. Why should western societies allow such intolerance to announce their call to prayer? No, two wrongs don’t make a right. But then, suppressing a call to intolerance isn’t wrong — but it may be wise.